


Clarification and Justification

by Witchy1ness



Series: How To (Not) Raise a Ravager [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Yondu's totally not trying to make up to Peter for earlier, blame the Ravagers, first flight lesson, how Peter gets the Milano, rated T for Tons of Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchy1ness/pseuds/Witchy1ness
Summary: It's not like Yondu arranged this because he feels bad for what went down; it was just the proper time to give the kid a ship of his own, that's all.





	Clarification and Justification

**Author's Note:**

> All recognizable characters, species, and settings are the property of Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, and/or Disney. I'm just borrowing them :)
> 
> Written in 2018.
> 
> Reviews and constructive criticism welcome, flames will be ignored.
> 
> From the limited glimpses of the other M-ships we see Yondu's crew in, I think blue and orange may be the Udonta Clan colours, so that's what I went with. Also a continuation of 'how many canon Ravagers can I fit in a series' personal challenge.

_There are four ways to fly: the right way, the wrong way, the company way and the captain's way. Only one counts._  
**\- Unknown**

 

Peter avoids Yondu for days once they get back to the _Eclector_. The entire situation has rattled him badly, and he seeks comfort in playing his mom’s tape nonstop. Lying in his bunk, the lyrics of the songs clashing incongruously with the lurid images behind his eyelids, Peter’s hit with such a wave of homesickness he cries.

He makes sure to do so as quietly as he can; the last time he’d cried Yondu had caught him, which had resulted in a rather rough “training” session that had left him with various bruises and a dire admonition to “Stop holdin’ onto that sentimental shit, boy, it’s makin' you weak.” 

_It doesn’t make you weak!_ He thinks venomously, and not for the first time.

“Pete?”

_Kraglin._

He hastily switches off the Walkman, jamming it back into his backpack to be hidden again later. He’s learned the hard way to not have both headphones on at the same time. He has just enough time to scrub his face with a corner of his blanket before the older Ravager appears in the doorway. 

He knows Kraglin can see his eyes are red and he glares at the first mate, daring him to say anything. 

“Th’others say they haven’t been seeing you in the mess recently,” is what he says instead. 

“M’not hungry,” he mutters sullenly. Which is, of course, when his stomach chooses to growl, and Peter can feel a flush creeping up his neck as he drops his head. 

Kraglin raises an eyebrow and snorts, “Right,” he deadpans, before tossing him a ration bar. 

Peter catches out of reflex, eyeing the other Ravager suspiciously.

Kraglin rolls his eyes, and then stares pointedly at the food. Peter grudgingly unwraps the bar and starts eating mechanically. 

“Captain’s gotta job fer you.”

Surprise makes him stop chewing, and though he struggles to, Peter can’t quite supress the flash of fear that follows, and he feels even more ashamed. 

_Ravagers don’t show fear._

“Where?” his voice is hardly more than a whisper, and he cringes. 

Kraglin doesn’t seem to notice. Or care. 

_Likely care,_ he thinks cynically.

“Th’hangar.”

“The _hangar_?” Peter blurts in surprise. “What does he want me to do in the _hangar_?”

“Go find Scrote and Halfnut. They’ll tell ya what to do.”

Jamming the rest of the ration bar in his mouth, Peter stuffs the wrapper in the trashbin and then ducks around the older Ravager, heading off down the hall without a further word to the first mate.

The hangar had always been a place he’d regarded with mingled awe and uneasiness. Awe, because _there were freaking spaceships_ , and they were in all different shapes and had all sorts of designs and colours splashed across them; and uneasiness, because there were only the thick floor plates (and a complex force-field system) separating them from the unforgiving vacuum of space. 

Awe usually won out, and he would sit and watch the Ravagers work on their ships for _hours_ ; he especially enjoyed watching when they needed to deploy, (from the section protected by a glowing forcefield that was so _Star Wars_ Peter almost couldn’t sleep after the first time he’d seen it) and had taken to volunteering as a wrench monkey when they sometimes limped home with missing panels and blackened electrical systems. He’d been rebuffed initially, more often than not, until the other Ravagers had realized his size made him perfect for more than just thieving (and when he’d worked up the nerve to start demanding payment, well, they’d fed him space-booze in celebration until he’d puked all over Kraglin’s boots).

Nowadays, he spends more time in the hangar than anywhere else, so when he gets told he’ll be spending his shifts there for the next few weeks, well, not even Halfnut’s mutter of “Th’fuck you grinning for?” is enough to wipe the smile off his face. 

The Clan’s gone and bought another M-ship, but Yondu wants to fix up the one they’ve replaced to sell, and that’s what Quill is told he’ll be doing. Peter can’t see anything wrong with the old one – besides a butt-ugly paint job – but knows better than to argue. 

Which is how he finds himself crawling excitedly through the guts of said M-ship; it’s been taken off its dock – the place in the _Elector_ ’s lower deck where the ships typically hang awaiting deployment – and brought around to the shop, where it’s been set down flat for ease of access.

“Don’t break anything, got it Quill? Ya do and Captain says we can eat ya!”

Unseen, Peter rolls his eyes at Scrote’s fretting, the usual spike of terror at hearing the familiar threat lessened by the fact that he is safely out of reach for the moment.

“The name’s _Star Lord_ ; and I’m not gonna _break_ anything – besides, it’s already broken so how would you know?”

Tucked up in one of the M-ship’s wings, he grins to himself at the incoherent sputtering coming from beneath him. 

_Too easy._

The next several weeks fly by in a blur of different Ravagers actually _teaching_ him about the different systems and parts of the M-ship (and he's so absorbed he never stops to question why) as he crawls over every inch of the craft a dozen times (and he winds up having to see Nex for new gear _twice_ \- having been caught on every stupid sharp corner and marinated in every damn fluid the ship holds by the time he’s done). 

It never occurs to him to ask why – if Yondu’s going to sell the ship – they’re repainting the Udonta Clan colours onto it. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The day the ship is finally, well, ship-shape, Peter spends hours just _being_ in it. He wanders from the lower deck, holding the bulk of the electrical and life-support systems; to the mid-deck, holding the living quarters and storage; to the flight deck, his favourite part of the ship.

_I want one_ , he thinks with a pang. He’d even worked up the nerve to ask Kraglin if maybe _he_ could buy the M-ship, but the first mate had gotten a funny look on his face and shaken his head.

“Sorry Pete, but the Cap’n’s already got a buyer. ‘Sides, you don’t have enough credits for it.”

_Bet I would have enough credits if Yondu didn’t keep takin’ most of ‘em_ , he thinks mutinously, scowling out the front viewport. 

He sits in the pilot’s seat and soaks it all in. Imagination replaces the boring view of the shop outside the viewport with a daring run through an entire fleet of Nova Corps, and they can’t _touch_ him, he’s so fast and he’s blowing apart ships with every shot – 

“Git yer ass out here, boy.”

_Yondu._

Oddly enough, Peter hasn’t heard so much as a bootfall from the Captain since they’d gotten back to the ship after that disastrous last mission, but he tries not to let his uneasiness show as he scrambles out of the ship to stand in front of the Centaurian.

It’s hard to judge from Yondu’s face whether he’s successful or not.

“She all ready?”

“Yes Captain.”

Peter feels another pang at the thought of saying good-bye to the ship – he’s secretly been calling it the _Milano_ already – and so doesn’t hesitate to follow Yondu back in when the Captain strides up the gangplank. 

He’s a little mystified when Yondu sits himself in one of the pilot seats and begins to power up the craft, but hurriedly goes to strap himself into the other one before the Centaurian can tell him to get out. 

He manages to stay quiet all through the lift-off procedure, and even when Yondu puts the ship through a few maneuvers once outside the _Eclector_. But when it becomes apparent that they are _not_ heading back to dock Peter can’t contain himself. 

“Is everything okay?” he blurts out. 

While he hasn’t flown an M-ship himself, he’s been a passenger in one enough times to tell if something’s off, but all he can feel is the smooth thrum of the engines coming up through the seat. 

Yondu grunts, “S’looking fine.”

And Peter feels the warm glow of pride suffuse his chest. 

The Captain slants a red-eyed look at him as he shuts the ship down completely and lets her drift, and Peter feels the uneasiness return with the full force of the male’s gaze on him. With the engines powered down, the only sounds he can hear are the faint hiss of the life-support and the beating of his heart in his ears. 

“What all needed fixing?”

The question is so left-field Peter can only stare dumbly at him for several long moments, only snapping out of it when those red eyes narrow warningly.

“Uh! Um, well, most of it was – I mean, there wasn’t a lot really _wrong_ with it – just dirt, mostly – well, I guess it wasn’t _dirt_ dirt, more like space dust, I guess –“

_“Boy.”_

He knows _that_ tone. With a huge gulp of air, Peter starts again, relaxing as Yondu sprawls in his chair, gaze moving to study the view outside.

It occurs to him, as he chatters along, that this is probably the longest conversation he and Yondu have ever had in the entire time he’s been on the ship. Even when Yondu’d been teaching him how to shoot he hadn’t said one word more than was necessary to get his point across. Sometimes he didn’t even bother and just smacked Peter until he got it right.

_‘Cept he’s just sitting there listenin’, so is this really a conversation?_

He eventually winds down, so involved in his recitation that any nerves he'd had about being around the Captain have quieted, and sits silently as he warily regards the Centaurian, who hasn’t budged the entire time.

“Sounds like ya know your shit,” he says at last, and Peter’s not sure, but he _thinks_ there might be some satisfaction curling through the words. 

Not sure how to respond, the boy just nods.

Yondu makes a sound that, incongruously, suddenly reminds Peter of his grandpa – a sort of groaning sigh the elder Quill had made when Peter came to him with ‘an awesome idea, Grandpa!’

As if coming to a decision Yondu nods, then leans forward and punches the piloting rig forward twice. 

Peter jumps, eyes wide, as the piloting rig attached to _his_ seat suddenly beeps at him.

_He can’t be serious!_

“You bin paying attention when we fly?”

“Yes Captain,” Peter says quickly, hope and caution battling internally, deciding at the last minute to not say anything about the simulators he’d found in the _Eclector_ ’s systems and been playing with for the last several months. 

The way the Captain smirks makes Peter think he knows about it anyway.

“Go ahead then,” he says, jerking his head towards the viewport and the open space in front of them, and Peter’s mind almost explodes.

“I can _fly_?” his voice pitches so high in surprise he squeaks, and both of them wince. 

“I dunno,” Yondu fires back, sneering, “Can ya?”

Peter doesn’t even bother responding, just whips around and settles his hands around the controls. It’s a bit of a stretch, but he’s leaning so far forward in his excitement he doesn’t care, eyes roving over the display in front of him. There’s nothing close by except the _Eclector_ ; just wide open space. 

He takes a second to adjust the pedals – earning another grunt from Yondu – and then sits and savours the moment.

The Centaurian doesn’t say anything, but Peter can feel him watching like a hawk as he goes through the start-up procedure, Yondu interjecting when he hesitates on the steps. He only loses it once, when Peter forgets to fully open the M-ship’s wings before reaching to power up the maneuvering thrusters.

“Fuckin’ moron! You try an’ fire those up first, and you’ll get a front row seat to a Ravager funeral! Wings up before you blow up!”

“Wings up before you blow up, got it,” Peter repeats absently, too absorbed in what he’s doing to notice the verbal abuse.

“An’ _don’ touch_ the weapons’ controls!”

And then – _he’s flying a spaceship!_

The _Milano_ swoops and dives almost as quickly as he can think the maneuvers, and he loves it so much he thinks his heart will explode.

_I wish Mom could see me_ ….he thinks with a pang, but gets distracted when Yondu says “Well? Thought you knew how to fly?”

_Blue bastard._

Gritting his teeth, Peter ignores him and lets loose.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A too short span of time later Peter is still gritting his teeth, but now it’s for an entirely different reason. Already slouched in his seat, he sinks lower still, crossing his arms as he stares daggers out the viewport and tries valiantly to ignore Yondu’s chuckling. 

The comm crackles and Peter wants to groan.

_“Everything okay out there, Captain? You bin driftin’ for a while.”_

Yondu keys the comm panel slowly and deliberately, even clearing his throat before he starts to speak, and Peter glowers mutinously at the obvious enjoyment the Centaurian is getting from dragging the whole process out. 

“We’re fine, Kraglin. Send someone to tow us in though, will ya? _Someone_ here didn’t think to check the fuel levels before showin’ off.”

There’s a brief pause, and then the howling laughter that comes over the comm makes Peter want to sink straight into the floor because there are _way_ more voices than just the bridge crew could account for. 

_The bastards set me up!_

He’s torn between kill-me-now levels of embarrassment and a faint sense of something he’s not sure how to define; but knows it has to do with the fact that a stunt like this is something he’s seen other Ravagers go through when they get accepted into the Clan.

Both are wiped out by a wave of outrage when he catches the sound of bets being settled, and he shoots upright in his seat to stare at Yondu, jaw dropping.

“Y’all made _bets_ on this?!”

The Captain looks at him like he’s an idiot, and yeah okay Peter has to give him that one. 

Of course, Yondu keeps the comm on for _far_ longer than is absolutely necessary, making Peter squirm until he does. He flops back into his seat, hands pressed to his eyes, unable to repress the groan that comes from his toes. He groans again when he drops his hands and not only does he see someone _already_ approaching, (meaning they had someone on standby, the _pricks_ ) but he recognizes which Ravager is coming out to grab them. 

“Not _Narblik_!” he doesn’t bother keeping the whine out of his tone. “He’ll make me do his laundry for _weeks_!”

Yondu snorts. “Guess you shoulda thoughta that, hey _Lil Bit_?”

“It’s _Star Lord_ ,” Peter snaps back automatically, but the Captain merely laughs. “Wait, Lil Bit?”

Yondu’s grin is always a freaky thing to see, but most especially when he’s grinning ear-to-ear. “Yeah, Lil Bit – as in, too bad you only had a _lil bit_ of gas!”

Sulking, Peter stares moodily at the steadily approaching M-ship, mentally muttering unkind things about Ravagers in general and Yondu specifically.

As they wait for Narblik to approach, Peter is jolted out of his brooding when Yondu speaks. 

“What’re you gonna call her?”

Peter can only stare blankly at him.

“Call her who?”

The Centaurian rolls his eyes and vaguely gestures around them. “The ship, dumbass.”

There’s a split second of _Oh God can Yondu read minds?_ before Peter rejects it. “Why would I call the ship anythin’?” he says cautiously, unconsciously shifting so he’s definitely out of arm’s reach.

Now it’s Yondu’s turn to stare, expression firmly back in the ‘boy you are the dumbest thing alive’ zone. 

“Cause she’s _your_ ship, dumbass.”

_….what?_

Peter’s brain doesn’t so much blank as it does completely reset. When he regains speech there are so many questions crowding his throat _(You’re giving me a ship? You’re lying, aren’t you? Why? What for?)_ but the first thing that comes out is:

“How much?”

And Yondu throws back his head and _laughs_ , sounding like old man Trussler, who’d smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for nearly thirty years. 

“Mebbe you ain’t so dumb after all,” he says through his chuckles, and then names a price that sends Peter’s heart plummeting through the floor.

It’s _a lot_ ; way more than he has, way more than he’ll likely _ever_ have, and the unfairness of it all is so much it _hurts_.

“Don’ go givin’ me that face,” the Captain scowls. 

They’re interrupted by Narblik’s approach, and Peter sits, mind whirling so much he can barely pay attention to the tow procedure.

Once they’re underway again, Yondu picks up the thread of conversation as if there’d been no interruption. 

“Look, yer old enough – and trained enough, more importantly – to go out on bigger jobs now; bigger jobs means bigger shares. But you can’t _get_ to those bigger jobs withou’ a ship. It’s a standard arrangement, Quill. You need a ship; I have a ship. As Captain, I’m signin’ it over to you _provisionally_. You make payments on it to me until you’ve paid the full value and then you’ll own it. You do good on the big jobs like ya have been on the little, an’ it won’t take you long at all.”

Peter still didn’t trust him. “An’ the full value of it won’t change?” he asks suspiciously. 

The Captain grins at him, “Thinkin’ like a proper Ravager; good! Naw, it won’t change. Soon’s we get back to the _Eclector_ we’ll sign the contract an’ that’ll be that.”

And suddenly Peter can’t breathe.

_….I have a ship._

_I have **my own** ship._

Now, the vague dreams he’s had of leaving the Ravagers and striking out on his own aren’t so vague any more. 

_I’ll be able to leave the Ravagers. I’ll be able to **leave**! I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything! I could even go – _

He cuts the thought off before he can finish it. No, he’ll never go back _there_ again; if just his memories hurt enough to the point of leaving him a sobbing mess, how much worse would it be if he were to actually stand in them? Especially since _she_ isn’t there anymore. Never mind how much hassle it’d be to explain where he’d been. 

Mind whirling, he barely notices the jolt when the ship – _his ship_ – docks, and it’s only when Yondu reaches over and roughly tousles his hair that Peter snaps out of it. 

“Not bad,” he says briskly, before fixing Peter with a grin. “So what’s th’first thing ya do when you get into yer ship?”

“Check the fuel levels,” Peter answers grudgingly, still reeling a little.

“An’ the second?”

Peter’s brow knits as he thinks, but he comes up blank.

“Check yer weapons,” Yondu tells him bluntly, and he nods.

“So what’s the first thing you do when ya _leave_ yer ship?”

He knows this at least, from watching the other Ravagers, but still scowls and mutters, “Fill the fuel tanks.”

“You got talent, boy, but no takin’ ‘er out alone yet, got it? This here’s still _my_ ship, an’ I want it in one piece after all the work I’d done on it. An _no weapons_ until I give you the go-ahead.”

Peter’s jaw drops, and he sputters, “The work _you’d_ done –“ but he’s talking to his Captain’s back, as Yondu’s already striding out of the craft and Peter didn’t realize they’d been sitting in the ship so long the hold’s already re-pressurized. 

He scrambles after his Captain, intent on giving the Centaurian a piece of his mind (not even registering the compliment), but stops when he sees the crowd of grinning Ravagers.

“Let’s hear it for Lil Bit!” someone shouts, and Peter’s groan is lost in the raucous cheer that follows.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon is that the Ravagers eventually stop calling him that (but refuse to call him Star Lord), but like to bring it up from time-to-time; like when he does something spectacularly stupid or is trying to impress a girl.
> 
> And last title/series name change I SWEAR. Fic titles taken from the stages of negotiation.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
